hope in the darkness
by ifonly13
Summary: She comes to him in the middle of the night, her heels slipped off at the threshold of their bedroom so her feet make no noise against the hardwood floors. :: An episode insert for What Lies Beneath...


She comes to him in the middle of the night, her heels slipped off at the threshold of their bedroom so her feet make no noise against the hardwood floors. For a moment, she stands on his side of the bed and watches: his chest rises and falls with the slow, steady breaths of sleep; his eyes closed against the sliver of moonlight that pours over her toes and onto his face, illuminating the lines at the corners of his downturned mouth. The laugh lines are still there at the wings of his eyes but fainter, dulled from disuse. Because of her, she thinks.

Her fingers itch to reach out and smooth the frown lines away but she can't. Won't. Doesn't. Instead, her palm falls back to the wrinkled silk blend of her dress.

He told her she looked gorgeous. Gorgeous in the dress she had bought for their anniversary dinner, the body-skimming powder blue with a low v-neck just the thing to have him peel off her at the end of a night with maybe too much wine mixing with the giddiness of making it one year without murdering each other. But when she had snuck back into the loft that morning after confirming with Alexis that Castle had slept at his office, her fingers had run over the zippered garment bag and she realized how desperately she needed the confidence boost.

She needed his eyes roving over her, needed to see that he still looked at her and saw not the woman addicted to justice but the woman he loved.

Loves. He's proven that again and again in the past fortnight, that his affection hasn't wanned in the face of his frustration and, yes, his justified anger toward her. He brings her coffee, leaves the Starbucks cup at the corner of her inkblotter like a secret valentine. He bought her a couch for her office to replace the ratty one, snuck into the precinct to decorate the warm black suede with her gun pillow and a pretty, embroidered brocade one she knows came from the armchair in his office. He bribes the boys - they think they're so sly but she didn't make captain for lack of observation skills - to put her favorite take-out in the fridge so she'll have dinner when she finally emerges from under her paperwork.

He still loves her and she needs to prove to him that she loves him just as fiercely despite cutting him out of this investigation. ( _It's complicated._ She's so tired of hearing herself say those two words.)

In his sleep, Castle groans, turning over ungracefully with his arm untucking from the blankets. Her heart clenches when the moon shows them to be the burgundy floral ones she had teased him into purchasing as they had wandered down the aisles of Target one afternoon.

She steps closer until his hand brushes her bare knee and tries to ignore the tiny shiver of pleasure that ripples through her body as she reaches for the comforter. She moves slowly, trying to tuck his arm back under the safe warmth of the blankets but his eyes flash open, hazy in the deep of night.

"Kate?" he mumbles, trying to sit up through his disturbed sleep. "What're you doing here?"

"I…"

There's no reasonable explanation for her presence in the home she demanded space from, no reason for her to be standing barefoot at his bedside at almost three in the morning wearing yesterday's clothes because she had only just left work after trying to sleep on her couch again.

He rubs at his eyes and she steps away, ready to make a tactical retreat. Leave before it hurts him again that she's come home but she hasn't _come home_. He catches the hem of her dress, tethering her to his side.

And he looks at her in the glow from the windows, the crack of light from the bathroom because she always runs into everything if she gets up at night. "Come sleep, Kate," he says, tugging at her so her legs hit the side of the mattress. "I know you haven't been."

There's no fighting that statement either. She's been up until midnight working on this obsession and it takes her forever to wind down from the adrenaline high of fighting towards closure on this and by the time she settles in, it's morning. Morning and time to try again.

"I should go," she tries to counter but his hand fists in her skirt.

"Please." The quiet whisper cuts through her thin defenses quicker than any yelling ever could. "I know you need space and that's okay. I can handle that but you need to sleep. Just… come to bed?"

She swallows the immediate rejection, the push in her to go put her shoes back on and get back to the extended-stay hotel room and instead sighs, curling her fingers around his fist. "Okay. Let me change," she says, untangling him from her dress.

Kate finds one of the ancient Cornell Law t-shirts (one she stole from her mother's bureau before they packed her things away in the storage locker with their Christmas decorations, the fabric worn soft from years and years and years of love) still in her side of their dresser and twists her arms to unzip the sheath dress. The cool blue fabric gets draped over the armchair as she shrugs on the shirt.

By the time she turns back around, he's asleep again, mouth open and slack against the pillows. But when she puts a knee on the mattress and the bed dips toward her, he startles awake again, flipping back the covers so she can crawl down under them, his hand beckoning her to curl in close.

And oh, it will hurt tomorrow but she obeys his silent wish and tucks herself in against him, her legs tangling with his and her right hand resting at his waist.

The tears in her eyes are sudden and unwelcome as his hand brushes through her tangled hair and she stops trying to stop them, turning her head into his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Castle," she chokes around a muffled sob.

His head shake is sleepy and slow, his fingers drugging against her scalp. Bringing her down off the investigative edge she's been teetering on for hours. "S'okay. Always love you," he gets out, pressing the words into her temple.

She fights to control her breathing when she feels his body let go under hers, tilting her head up to watch him fall asleep again. "Always love you too," she murmurs in response and his eyes close, his frown a gentle smile now.

Kate turns her head back to touch a kiss to the line of his shoulder right where his t-shirt ends.

She falls asleep easier than she has in two weeks.


End file.
